Nora started “Twinkle Toes” ballet class a few weeks ago. This is super exciting news because firstly she’s always been a little ballerina at heart and secondly this is her very first class of any kind. Since she had never been in a structured class environment before she was a little overwhelmed at first, being distracted by watching the other little girls instead of following the teacher. But now she’s got the hang of it and has been having lots of fun in her class.

With the thoughts in mind of Nora’s germ exposure going to ballet class, we decided to follow the idea of other short bowel parents who have written brief letters to the other parents in the class explaining our situation and asking them to let us know if their child has been sick recently. Nora seems to have a strong, well established  immune system but with flu season upon us we decided it was best to play it safe.

Writing a letter like this is was a bit of an awkward thing for us and apparently when I handed them out to the parents at Nora’s first class my awkwardness overcame my social skills. I didn’t give any explanation while passing out our letter, or really say anything more than “can I give this to you?”. I was feeling a bit like I was handing out a sales flyer from the looks I was getting but I was hoping my weirdness was mostly in my head. Apparently not, after class Montana assured me I came across like a total weirdo and looked like I was soliciting for Amway! Oh well, we had a good laugh about it and at least the deed is done.

Even though this picture is a little blurry I just had to share Nora’s super excited expression when we went to the ballet store to get her slippers and outfit.

Twinkle, twinkle!

It seemed that Christmas came and went faster than usual last year. But to a 3 year old I’m sure every day seemed like an eternity waiting to see what Santa would bring. All month of December Nora would ask every few days if it was Christmas yet. But she had lots of fun while the time passed, adding new, out of the ordinary ornaments to the tree on a daily basis. By the time Christmas was over she had anything you could think of hanging off the tree, toys, baby shoes and even her big girl undies from Santa donned the tree on Christmas day…silly girl.

A happy girl on Christmas morning

Ready for Christmas lunch and still smiling……

Christmas is awesome!

We got an unexpected surprise the day after Christmas – snow flurries in Florida! It wasn’t even enough to stick to the ground or even to see unless you were looking hard but it was snow……. in FL! This was Nora’s first time seeing snow so that made it even more exciting. Since there wasn’t enough to build a real snowman we had to improvise with our lighted snowman and Nora still had a blast “building” him.

Nora got to experience another winter first a few days later when we took her ice skating. Even though it’s been extremely cold down here but not quite enough to actually freeze a lake. They had a synthetic ice skating rink set up downtown which was the real deal to Nora and she had a great time.

(a little side note…… I just wanted to point out something that initially may seem very insignificant – the little red wristband on Nora’s wrist that she was given to wear when we bought her ice skating ticket. When I went to put the wristband on Nora I noticed she began to look a little nervous, then I realized that until that day, the only wristbands that Nora had ever worn is when she’s admitted for a hospital stay or procedure. We immediately assured her that the band was for ice skating and then she was ok and ready to go.  I’ll be keeping that first little happy red wristband in my Nora keepsakes to remind me of this very happy first.)

Nora thought the huge ornaments they had downtown were pretty cool and they put her in a very silly photo shoot mood.

I finally updated Nora’s YouTube site if you want to see the silly girl in action.

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=norasmamma#p/a

These wishes come a little late, but we hope everyone had a Very Merry Christmas and wishing you all a Very Happy and Healthy New Year!! Love, Nora, Montana and Sarah

Nora loves the tire swing at the park.

and she loves dressing up Aunt Jenny’s doggie.

She especially loves being silly and making silly faces.

She’s our little nature lover. She loves playing outside and finding little buddies.

She is a great yard work helper. And she is cute and fashionable while helping.

And of course she loves spending time with her best play buddy Maya.

The butterfly theme seems to be a running thing around here lately. After we enjoyed raising the caterpillars we got Nora for her birthday so much we decided to give it another try. We took Nora to a little local nursery to “adopt” a little caterpillar. Nora decided to dress up for the adventure in her appropriate butterfly attire. And of course Smiley the caterpillar joined along for the trip.

We took our cute little swallowtail caterpillar home, named it Spotty because of it’s yellow spotted markings. Then we watched it eat and poop a lot for a few days, it cocooned and we watched and waited for 2 weeks until one day Spotty emerged as a beautiful butterfly.

Nora couldn’t wait to teach Spotty how to fly. She grabbed her butterfly wings and said “I have to teach Spotty how to flutter!” Then she proceeded to dance around the room flapping her arms saying “flutter, flutter!”

Look at that proud little face!

Nora’s flying lesson resulted in Spotty getting lost in the house for a few hours. Apparently swallowtail butterflies are ready to full on fly a lot sooner after cocooning than the pink lady butterflies we had. Although I worried a bit until we found her, Spotty’s extra stay in the house before getting released turned out to be a saving grace since the bug man came to spray outside that afternoon. It’s nice when unpredictable occurrences seem to happen for a reason.

Fireworks are fun too but a little loud.

Last year the fireworks were too loud for Nora and scared her. But this year she realized all she needed to do was cover her ears and enjoy the visual show. We only had a few fireworks on Memorial Day and she wanted more. So for the 4th of July we will have to do it up big time.

The only experience Nora has had with people wearing a mask and gloves is when her port is going to be messed with which makes her very nervous. I can’t believe that neither I or Montana didn’t think about this situation before her appointment and talk to her about it. I was kicking myself in the butt big time for not making this connection ahead of time. The hygienist was very understanding and didn’t try to pressure us to stay. The dentist on the other hand wasn’t rude but let me know he thought it was important for Nora to tough it out. I politely let him know that we have had to force Nora to do many unpleasant things for medical necessity in her life and a teeth cleaning was not going to be one of them. So we ended the appointment very quickly and will try again in a few months.

By the time we left Nora was smiling and even shook the hygienist’s hand and promised to let her clean her teeth next time. Since this experience we have had many talks with Nora about all the different reasons people wear masks and gloves besides to mess with her port.

Life is one big learning experience for all of us.

Our trip to the beach was great. It was just the relaxing distraction we needed from the everyday hustle and bustle. I wish we could live in day dream beach land forever. I loved seeing how the work stress just melted away from Montana’s face as soon as we arrived. He works such long hard hours to support our family. I am so very thankful for his devotion and giving our family the opportunity for me to stay at home with Nora to give her the undivided care and attention she needs.

A good sword fight is always a good stress buster.

Nora had a great time but it seems that the idea of the beach is much more appealing to her than the actual beach. Sand between your toes, big waves and the heat can be a little much for such a little girl. She only liked  being down on the water for short spurts at a time. Even though it made for more work trudging back and forth to the beach house so often it was actually just what Nora needed to do to not get overheated and stay hydrated. Short bowel causes enough hydration issues in itself and you add excessive heat to the equation and things can go bad fast.

This was Nora checking out a fellow toddler and his baby brother down the beach. She found them very intriguing and insisted we walked down for a friendly hello.

Nora the wind warrior! I think Nora’s favorite thing about the beach is that the wind is always up for good kite flying. And playing in the kite tales on the deck makes for a lot of fun too.